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August 09, 2005
Technology is relative
Technology is a relative term. When Pierce Hall first opened in 1882, there were no bathrooms - a privy was outside. To students of an earlier era, plumbing and electricity (things taken for granted today) were a great technology. College students also survived as recently as 10 years ago without cell phones, laptops, iPods, and PDA's. What kinds of "technology" did you have in your dorm? typewriters? TV's? a phonograph or stereo? just a lamp and a radio?
Helen Conger
University Archives
Posted by hxy2 at August 9, 2005 02:45 PM
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Comments
In the 1970s, we had no televisions or telephones in the dorm rooms. If you wanted to watch TV, you went down to the communal "TV room," and hoped that it was empty, or if not, the people there would want to watch what you did.
If you got a phone call, everyone would hear it announced on the public address system -- and you would run to the one phone situated on each floor to accept the call. Long distance was still expensive, so many students who received calls while lounging in their room would skip putting on pants and run to the phone dressed only in their underwear.
That's why we all liked to hang out in the girls' floor hallway!
Posted by: Howard Loberfeld at August 29, 2005 07:57 PM
Back in 1996, the university forced us all to be guinea pigs for this new network technology called ATM that was supposed to be superior to Ethernet. What a disaster that was...
Posted by: Peter Kim at August 30, 2005 10:45 PM